My latest purchase from Helion - CHARLES XI's WAR The Scanian War between Sweden and Denmark 1675-1679. I first read about the Scanian War 55 years ago in my first uniform book the classic Blandford Military Uniforms of the World. It had 2 pages of uniforms from this war.
I'm looking for ideas for future Imaginations campaignS and I decided this little known war might be a good starting point. So far its been a good read - 256 pages of detail.
This Christmas proved a great success with two wargaming related presents.. First there was a copy of Charles Grant's latest book 'A wargaming Retrospective from PRE-WW2 Onwards'. A good gentle read available from Caliver Books. Secondly I got a copy of the Battle of Britain game by Richard Borg - originally released by TSR and recently rereleased by Plastic Soldier Company. Just before Christmas I had finished a campaign with John Perkin using his copy. It's still for sale today at a bargain price of £14.95 from PSC.
Happy New Year everyone.
I was lucky enough to get an article published in this years Wargames Annual. It sets out how my friends and I played through the 5 scenarios in Charles Grant's' Raid on St Michel' imaginations campaign book using Black Powder. I had to develop a system to assess the casualties on the units and how these flowed forward to the following scenarios. Also included are my troop ratings for the units.
Many thanks to Charles for having the original scenario maps redone in full colour and providing colour versions of some of the original black and white photos in the book to go along with my 2022 game photos. My plan for 2024 is to play thru 4 scenarios from the 'Annexation of Chiraz',
Coming soon - The Gothenburg Gamers (Lothian branch not Swedish) will be presenting our game 'The True Account of the Spanish Descent upon Dunbar 1588'
Another new SYW book arrived this week from Helion. Their reprint of Christopher Duffy's "By Force of Arms". I already had their reprint of the first volume of his history of the Austrian Army in the Seven Years War "Instrument of War". I registered an interest in the reprint last year and I worried it would be delayed or even cancelled due to Christopher passing away late in 2022.
At 523 pages it will give me a few weeks of bedtime reading. Good timing as I have just finished rereading his wonderful "The Military Experience in the Age of Reason".
Over the past year I added more units to my Seven Years War collection. The latest were 2 battalions of Hungarian infantry and the Red Hussars all from Von Kleist's Freikorps. The hussars are by Sash and Sabre and the infantry by Foundry. I was short of 4 figures for the infantry so got 2 packs of the Von Kleist's band from Foundry. That built the infantry up to 24s and gave me the figures for the two 4 figure band bases. I have to come up with a useful Black Powder rule to use the bands. All the figures were painted by my friend Kevin Bowman and based by myself.. His painting just keeps getting better.
Latest arrivals from N&MP - I have added 3 Helion books on the seventeenth century. Two on the ECW and one on the Imperial Army1657-87. The ECW books are 100+ pages and the Imperial Army 300 pages. My New Year 2023 present to myself and all bargains especially the Imperial Army.
